Owned by the Southern California Tennis Association, the event claims to have lost money for the past four years. The tournament, which was held at UCLA and called the Farmers Classic for the past three years, was unable to sign its two major sponsors for 2013. In the last two years, the ATP 250-level tournament tried to attract fans without paying appearance fees to star players, but was unsuccessful in doing so.

Like the recently sold ATP tournament in San Jose, California, the L.A. tournament struggled after the retirement of popular U.S. stars Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, and Michael Chang. The tournament was unable to consistently recruit 2003 U.S. Open champion Andy Roddick and was never able to convince the sport’s two biggest draws, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, to come to the U.S. so soon after Wimbledon. The event has been played in late July.

The USTA has no current plans to try and replace the event. Next year, it is scheduled to be played the week of July 22, alongside European clay-court events in Umag and Gstaad. It is scheduled in between U.S. Open Series tournaments in Atlanta and Washington, DC. It is possible that the Bogota group is simply buying the tournament sanction, and will look for another place on the calendar to hold the event, possibly in February when the other Latin American tournaments take place.

Los Angeles’ demise will mean that California, which once hosted four ATP tournaments annually, will be down to one: Indian Wells, a combined men’s and women’s tournament held in March. In 1980, there were 36 ATP tournaments played in the U.S. Next year, there will only be 13. In 2014, unless a new tournament comes in, there will only be 12, as San Jose will move to Brazil.

No big name American players on the tour means significantly worse and less glamorous playing fields, more difficulty in attracting an sponsors and less revenue for the smaller American tournaments.

It is sad that two events with such a long and rich history, San Jose and LA, will soon be no more though. At the start of the open era, LA use to be a very big tournament which the likes of Laver, Pancho Gonzales and Connors all took seriously. San Jose was the 4th oldest tournament still on the tour after Wimbledon, the US Open and Canada.

it's been Atlanta the last few years hasn't it? I seem to recall the absurd schedule of Atlanta to LA and then back to D.C. in subsequent weeks. That flight across the country probably doesn't help matters for the L.A. tourney to draw players. They always had difficulty drawing Roddick and Isner usually skips it too. They'd get Cali guys like Fish and Querrey and that's pretty much it in this era.

Nobody really attended this tournament but americans who felt obligated to attend any domestic event. You would see Roddick, Isner and Fish, Querrey but you don't see Federer, Djokovic, Murray or any others attending it and you don't see the sponsorship money because of it.

LA is a major city and it's kinda sad that it's not at least a 500 series event, which would draw the higher seeds and bigger names to it. But Most of those guys would save time to rest up than to travel all the way across the country just to enter in a 250 event. Draw bigger names and you give more reason for sponsors to invest more money for the event. This tournie maybe slowly went away because of it.

Mixed emotions: saw some amazing matches in the late 90's early 00's - Agassi v Sampras twice; Agassi v Kuerten. Safin, Haas used to play a lot (Tommy loved the pre-tourney parties at The Mansion). But I didn't go when the quality of the fields cratered.

Like the say in real estate: location, location, location. No, not the venue - UCLA campus and Westwood are great. Location on the schedule. Way too early in the summer hard lineup - there are still clay events in Europe.

Also read the last 4 yrs the organizers paid NO appearance fees. Since players only need two or three tournaments to get ready for the US Open, this wasn't very bright.

Mixed emotions: saw some amazing matches in the late 90's early 00's - Agassi v Sampras twice; Agassi v Kuerten. Safin, Haas used to play a lot (Tommy loved the pre-tourney parties at The Mansion). But I didn't go when the quality of the fields cratered.

Like the say in real estate: location, location, location. No, not the venue - UCLA campus and Westwood are great. Location on the schedule. Way too early in the summer hard lineup - there are still clay events in Europe.

Also read the last 4 yrs the organizers paid NO appearance fees. Since players only need two or three tournaments to get ready for the US Open, this wasn't very bright.

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Pretty sure they didn't have any money to give players appearance fees, considering they didn't have a sponsor for those years.

Pretty sure they didn't have any money to give players appearance fees, considering they didn't have a sponsor for those years.

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yeah Robbie Koenig was talking about this a couple weeks ago. Even beyond the sponsorships, he said it's getting increasingly difficult for most of 250 level tourneys to afford the appearance fees for more than one top player. And even then it was still difficult for the LA tourney to draw Roddick let alone Fed or Nadal who in their prime were never going to play this tourney anyway given it's place on the schedule. Even if they could have offered Roger two million to show up, he always takes time off after Wimbledon and would've passed anyway.

oh well, it's not so bad. Indian Wells isn't that far away from LA. And there are other major US markets like Chicago and Boston who don't have a tourney either. I mean those of us in the ******* have to drive to Cincy to see a pro level tourney. If one lived in Minneapolis you'd have to base a vacation around seeing even one day of tennis. At least with those in LA you can make a relatively short trip out to the valley for Indian Wells.

The question that comes to my mind is "what's the deal with LA?" A city this size and it hasn't had a pro football team in decades, can't seem to support a tennis tournament in a climate where everyone ought to be playing tennis, and even supports its baseball team in a half-assed way. (I've never been to a game there, but my daughter was taken to one a couple of years ago while there on business, and apparently it's true that even in a close game the place would start to empty out around the fifth inning). Angelinos or Diablos??

Nobody really attended this tournament but americans who felt obligated to attend any domestic event. You would see Roddick, Isner and Fish, Querrey but you don't see Federer, Djokovic, Murray or any others attending it and you don't see the sponsorship money because of it.

LA is a major city and it's kinda sad that it's not at least a 500 series event, which would draw the higher seeds and bigger names to it. But Most of those guys would save time to rest up than to travel all the way across the country just to enter in a 250 event. Draw bigger names and you give more reason for sponsors to invest more money for the event. This tournie maybe slowly went away because of it.

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This tournament is held right after Washington, which is a 500. It's also held about 3 weeks after Wimbledon, and most of the top 10 take time off until Cincinatti, so no matter what LA or whoever fills its place did/does, it's never going to be a 500 and no way will it lure Fed, Murray, Nadal etc. I don't know why the original article even mentioned them

I just checked his results database, and the best US player of his generation Roddick only played at LA 4 times in his career (in 2001, 2002, 2006 and 2008), and the second best player Blake played there pretty intermittently as well.

All of these ATP 500 or 250 events in the US will continue to struggle as long as tennis remains such a heavily European dominated sport, and the best US players are struggling to reach the top 10 and gain any recognition whatsoever amongst more casual tennis followers.

Indianapolis merely relocated to Atlanta in 2010 and wasn't scrapped altogether at least. Still it is pretty sad that there is no event held there any more, considering that Indy was voted by the players as their favourite International Series Gold/ATP 500 tour event, 9 times in 12 years from 1990-2001.

The question that comes to my mind is "what's the deal with LA?" A city this size and it hasn't had a pro football team in decades, can't seem to support a tennis tournament in a climate where everyone ought to be playing tennis, and even supports its baseball team in a half-assed way. (I've never been to a game there, but my daughter was taken to one a couple of years ago while there on business, and apparently it's true that even in a close game the place would start to empty out around the fifth inning). Angelinos or Diablos??

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Aside from the Lakers, USC football (when they're good) and sometimes the Dodgers (when they're good), it's just not a great sports town. The Lakers always draw, but it's a very front running sports climate there. Just too much other stuff to do, not to mention, a significant portion of the population of the surrounding city aren't from LA. Sort of the same reason Atlanta has been a terrible sports town because so many people from all over the Southeast move to Atlanta for work - CNN/Turner etc...and they're not Atlanta sports fans. Let's face it, if Winston Salem, NC and Memphis can support tourneys, and LA can't, then it's probably time to for them to give it up. It's not totally their fault, but where it stands on the schedule, I just think it's doomed to what it is. Newport faces the same challenge. Hey Wimbledon is over, but here's a tiny grass court tourney just before 5 months of hard courts. If that tourney didn't have the Hall of Fame inductions tied to it, I can't imagine they'd draw flies either.

This isn't true - BOTH teams draw over 3 million fans a year. The Dodgers pretty much forever and the Angels since Moreno bought the club and got players and the Big A was renovated. The LA Kings won the Cup and if there weren't a strike would have had huge crowds - they sold all the season tickets that were allotted.

Old story - folks in the Southland have other things to do than attend sports events.....like go out and play the sports or hit the beach or the mountains...etc.

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This is the correct answer (and add the other forms of entertainment - movies, concerts, etc). There is a lot to do out here - if you don't offer a quality product, you are doomed. Querrey v Barankis isn't going to cut it.

Farmer Insurance? Ring a bell? Murray played in 2010 - I'm pretty confident he got paid. So, while Robbie Koenig knows a lot, he doesn't know everything - like the other talking heads on TV.

Not that long ago it was a huge deal and a hot ticket. And for all the talk of the WTF being sold out, I'm getting emails from the ATP stating there are still tickets for sale.

This isn't true - BOTH teams draw over 3 million fans a year. The Dodgers pretty much forever and the Angels since Moreno bought the club and got players and the Big A was renovated. The LA Kings won the Cup and if there weren't a strike would have had huge crowds - they sold all the season tickets that were allotted.

This is the correct answer (and add the other forms of entertainment - movies, concerts, etc). There is a lot to do out here - if you don't offer a quality product, you are doomed. Querrey v Barankis isn't going to cut it.

the NHL league average over that time span was 16,974 which means for half a decade they were under league average. Yes the Dodgers draw 3+ million per year but they also have a huge stadium (56,000). If you go by capacity% they match up with Washington and Miami at around 73% capacity. The Yankees, also with a huge stadium (54,200) are around 89%. Philly also outdraws the Dodgers with a city population nearly a third the size of LA. There is a lot to do in Chicago in the summer too, and they have a legit two team town...not one 30 miles away, and the Cubs still draw 3 million a year as well in a much smaller ballpark...and usually with a losing team.

The tournament owner and management of the Indian Wells Masters event offered to buy the Los Angeles men’s tournament last year, which is now in the process of being sold to a group from Bogota, Colombia, TENNIS.com has learned.

Indian Wells CEO Ray Moore told TENNIS.com that his group—which includes owner Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle—“offered to buy the tournament a year ago. They never came back to us. A year ago they gave us two stories, they said they’d sell 49 percent to us and we said Larry Ellison is not going to be a minority partner, and then they told us that they had someone else who was interested and would conform to the 51 to 49 percent, and they never even came back to us. They never said said, ‘Guys we have a buyer from Bogota do you want to preempt it?’ I’m surprised there wasn’t another conversation about it. I was amazed when we heard about the deal. We only heard about it two or three weeks ago.”

Moore says that the Indian Wells group—which manages the WTA Premier-level tournament for Octagon in Carlsbad (San Diego County) in early August—wanted to combine the ATP 250-level tournament with WTA event at La Costa Resort and Spa. The L.A. men’s tournament is played during the last week of July.

As recently as 2005 there were three tournaments in Los Angeles: the ATP stop; a WTA Premier-level tournament that was played in Manhattan Beach and moved to Carson; and the WTA Championships, which was played at the Staples Center. With the sale of the ATP event, all those tournaments will have left the area.